


the entropy of our mistakes

by essektheylyss (midnightindigo)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Loneliness, Spoilers for e122, and now are burdened with anxiety at the rest of the party's bad decisions, some of us learned from our hubris-fueled mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightindigo/pseuds/essektheylyss
Summary: The trouble with caring about people, Essek has discovered, is that you suddenly have to learn how to worry about them.Fjord has spent so much time worrying that he can navigate it with grace.
Relationships: Fjord & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 8
Kudos: 93





	the entropy of our mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> As always, let Fjord and Essek talk. They have the best interactions. Please someone stick these two in a room together for the rp potential.

Hours later and his pulse hasn’t stopped racing.

He should sleep soon, if he doesn’t want to suffer for it tomorrow, but instead he paces the inside of his makeshift office and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands to try to wipe the red brand of it from his vision.

And still it remains, red where it peers from Beau’s hand, red where it stands among the freckles of Caleb’s shoulder, and it feels like it’s a venom that one could suck out from a wound but it remains.

He rubs his eyes again and nearly leaps out of his skin as the flap of the door opens, letting in a few flurries and the cold rush of night air, and even when he recognizes Fjord stepping inside, holding his bare palms up unthreateningly, his pulse still does not slow.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Fjord says quietly. “I couldn’t sleep and took a walk and… from the light still on it looked as though you were awake as well.”

He nods mutely and gestures to the chair that sits across from his desk, walking around to his own seat. “Would you…” he begins, and picks up a bottle of whiskey that sits at the corner with two glasses, and Fjord nods as he pulls the chair out and sits.

“Thank you,” Fjord says politely, and raises a glass to him before taking a sip. Essek drinks with him, and for a long moment the only sound is the wind whistling across the snow outside and the clinking of armor as a couple guards pass on their rounds.

Once they are out of earshot, Fjord chuckles and looks into his lap. “What a long few weeks.”

“Indeed.”

“Good, though, strangely. In some ways. You know I—“ he leans back and almost thinks better of his sentence, then plows on anyway. “You know I kissed Jester?”

He’s not quite sure how he’s supposed to respond, so he blinks rapidly a few times before asking, “And how is that going?”

“Well, we haven’t had much time to discuss it any further, since…”

“You have been unwitting hostages of a homicidal maniac.”

“Something like that.”

“How do you survive it?” he asks, before he can stop himself, feeling his face flush. He takes another sip of his drink to hide his embarrassment. Fjord doesn’t respond until he clarifies, “How do you watch people you care about put themselves in this kind of danger everyday?”

He tries not to wonder if anyone who cared about him would’ve stopped him from making the mistakes he has, if they’d been allowed close enough to notice them, but then people caring about them have not saved Caleb and Beau from their own choices.

“You remind yourself that you cannot learn others’ lessons for them,” Fjord says, with a hint of a smile. “And you take the hits as a secondary reminder, that time is never as abundant as you’d like it to be, and the ‘right time’ for anything doesn’t exist.”

He thinks Fjord is making some kind of point—the phrase _time is my specialty_ rings in his ears—but then he sees how absently Fjord stares into the space over his shoulder and connects some of the dots.

“Ah. So you kissed Jester after…”

“Those statues we mentioned. Yes.” Fjord rubs a hand over his face. “Until then it had felt like, you know, just after the next battle. Or the one after, then things wouldn’t be so _complicated_. I mean, I didn’t even feel that way when I was assassinated last month—“

“You were _what_?”

“Ah, yes.” He takes a long drink before he continues. “I was in the rather unwitting employ of a demigod entombed beneath the Lucidian, for a time. When I, ah, quit, it did not go over well. I also have possession of a particular item that can break the bindings keeping it at bay, and it would very much like it back.” He leans onto the back two legs of his chair, using one foot to keep himself steadied. “I was attacked in my quarters on our way to the peace talks, and again one day during our journey to Balenpost.”

“So anytime you set foot on a boat, then, you are liable to be assaulted?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“Then why not avoid the sea altogether?”

He scoffs, rocking gently. “You can’t avoid something as encompassing as the ocean because it poses a few challenges.”

Essek thinks targeted assassination constitutes more than a ‘challenge,’ but he certainly respects Fjord’s resolve.

“In any case, I thought, well, we’ll go up to Eiselcross, take care of our contractual obligations, return to the Coast, see if we can’t kill a snake, and then it’ll be the right time. But some things change your perspective.”

“They do,” Essek agrees, and Fjord’s gaze pierces him.

“And how has your perspective changed, since last we spoke?” he asks.

“Well, I—“ he cuts himself off, and looks to the ceiling, not so much in prayer as in the hope that perhaps a suitable answer will be found written in code on the walls. “I can much better appreciate the entropy of ripple effects.”

“Oh?”

“Well, in the past—unexpected consequences, the ones that scale far beyond your reach, they always felt like more of a rare side effect. A small, isolated chance of things going horribly wrong as a suitable price to pay for what you want.”

“And now?”

“Now, well… I suppose the problem with no longer being alone is suddenly having to witness where every small consequence magnifies when it encounters someone else’s.”

“Your choices start to tangibly affect those around you when you feel how their choices affect you.”

“There are no vacuums to exist within, I have learned.”

“No, there aren’t.”

They both finish their drinks, and Fjord sets his glass on the desk. “Thank you for that—a bit of drink will be more than helpful in getting to sleep.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

“You and I…” Fjord trails off as he leans his palms on his knees as though to stand. “I am glad you are accompanying us in the morning. I think you and I understand how to harness entropy as well as anyone can.” Now he does stand, clapping his hands together. “Best go check on our cursed friends, see if they’ve grown another eye.”

Essek freezes once again, and Fjord’s good humor fades from his face.

“I’m sorry, that was in poor taste.” As he stands there, the desk between them, and fumbles with his scarf, he offers, “We will fix this.”

And then he leaves, into the cold snow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Here's hoping Matt gives us the drow wizard existential crisis we deserves.


End file.
